The new deal further expands a previous agreement for the development of new technologies
Chinese vendor ZTE Corporation has signed a strategic partnership agreement on Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G with Belgian telecommunications operator Telenet.This new agreement expands the partnership between the two companies to cover future network innovations.
“We are convinced this partnership will allow us to offer a top quality mobile network for existing and future needs all over Belgium,” Telenet’s Chief Technology Officer Micha Berger, said.
Telenet is the largest cable broadband service provider in Belgium. The company provides a range of digital television, fixed and mobile services to residential and business customers across Belgium and Luxembourg.
In August 2016, Telenet selected ZTE to upgrade its national mobile network, deploying ZTE’s Uni-RAN technology. The network modernization project gave the carrier enhanced capabilities to manage its operations.
Under the modernization project, ZTE helped Telenet replace 2G base stations and optimize 3G, 4G coverage, delivering increased network capacity for enhanced user experience for subscribers, and supporting evolution to future network technologies.
Telenet also completed field test achieving download speeds of 1.3 Gigabits per second, the Chinese vendor said.
With the new strategic partnership with the Asian company, Telenet will explore technology solutions for Internet of Things services and high capacity solutions using LTE Massive MIMO and LTE Broadcast solutions.
ZTE is investing in research and development of core 5G technologies including Massive MIMO, MUSA (multi-user shared access), FB-OFDM (filter-bank OFDM), Virtual Cell and network slicing.
The vendor participates in over 70 standards organizations, alliances, and forums, including ITU, 3GPP, IEEE, NGMN, and IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group.
Far EasTone, Ericsson test smart parking solutions in Taiwan
In related news, Taiwanese operator Far EasTone Telecommunications (FET) has installed an experimental NB-IoT station at a 5G lab established through cooperation with Swedish vendor Ericsson.
FET and Ericsson will jointly start a trial application of IoT technology on 700MHz spectrum for smart parking in basement garages, Taiwanese press reported. Each parking space will feature a wireless sensor to allow car drivers to use a smartphone-based guiding app to find vacant parking spaces.
In addition, FET has partnered with Information and Communications Research Laboratories under government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute to test the use of a smart power meter service based on NB-IoT technology. FET uses NB-IoT and LTE Cat M1 technologies for IoT applications.
